Football Manager Live: The Reboot •
Page 3

Marc Duffy:
Yeah, and there's a good reason for it. We've got 400,000 players in the Football Manager database, but in FML we only load in around 50,000. We take out a number of the lesser players and make sure when you start the game you have a squad probably comparable to a Championship side. You won't have a load of old duffs in there.

If we loaded in too many players the game would be slower and there'd be loads and loads of rubbish players floating about that no one would bother buying.

Eurogamer:
A bit like Brighton FC?

Marc Duffy:
They'd be a lot like Brighton! A hell of a lot like Brighton.

Eurogamer:
Our Eurogamer TV man James Hills is a fan, and he's crushed that he'll lose his stadium and fleet of young players to the reboot. He was a long-term-minded manager. What sort of guarantee is there that this won't happen again?

Marc Duffy:
Realistically, if we're at a stage where we have to reboot Football Manager Live again, then we're seriously looking at whether the game exists. This is a one and only reboot for us. We can't think about doing it again.

There are reasons why certain things like the stadiums can't come over. If we gave James a new stadium of similar worth or a compensatory sum, we'd immediately imbalance the new game world. The same with his squad of youth players.

Eurogamer:
If I were to play devil's advocate I'd argue that someone who had invested 15 months of their life playing your game ought to have an advantage. Oughtn't they?

Marc Duffy:
With them keeping their skill points, they'll immediately have enough to specialise 100 per cent in one area and pretty much all the way in another. You could argue that that's their advantage over newbies. Although we can't do as much as people like, we've done as much as we can.

Football managers have vivid imaginations.

Eurogamer:
James Hills' long-term approach to managing is just like Arsene Wenger's. Tell me, Marc Duffy, how will Arsenal celebrate winning the Premiership and how many goals will they put past Barcelona? [Oh god, here we go. - Ed]

Marc Duffy:
Arsenal winning the Premier League? I think you're delusional. Arsenal have absolutely no chance of ever... well, not ever winning the league, but they have no chance of winning the league this season. And I personally couldn't see them beating Barcelona.

Eurogamer:
Who is going to win Premiership this season?

Marc Duffy:
The league, I think, is Manchester United's.

Eurogamer:
Is the revamped Football Manager Live the type of game for someone interested in fantasy football but put off by the complexity of Football Manager proper? Can I keep up by playing on my lunch break?

Marc Duffy:
You could, yeah. An accusation levelled at the game that had been true, previously, was that FML was too hard and favoured people who logged in a lot more. With the reboot it's a lot less like that. We've added skill-queuing deliberately for people playing on lunch breaks.

I would go along with what you said: FML is very much aimed at fantasy football, football fans, that don't want to put the time and the effort in to playing Football Manager but who like the thought of competing online against other human managers.

Bertie is a senior staff writer, which doesn't mean he's old, although he is, a bit. He's part of the furniture here and reports on all kinds of things, the stranger the better. He's a bit odd but then who isn't? @Clert on Twitter.